


Colour Contrast

by GooseAndGold



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, M/M, tags added as we go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:28:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6637303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GooseAndGold/pseuds/GooseAndGold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurosaki Ichigo wakes up with no memories--of his life, of his abilities as a shinigami, and of his friends and enemies. The first acquaintance he runs into could not be more pissed to see him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colour Contrast

**Author's Note:**

> So, this takes place at ~some time~ in the canon, but obviously diverges. I thought it would be fun to play around with how Grimmjow would react to a pre-character development Ichigo, and what percentage of the truth he would decide to tell.

You wake up.

Your internal temperature is so out-of-whack that you can’t tell if you’re freezing or burning up. You’re nauseous and you feel like your throat is coated in salt. The morning sun shines into your eyes, adding to your already distressing headache. Damp sand shifts under your arms as you push to sit up on your elbows, still reeling and disoriented.

Once your vision stops swimming, you look away from the expansive horizon on the ocean and back toward the road running behind you. You’re on a beach, with concrete breakwaters forming a calm bay. There are signs, in Japanese, and you can read them.

Japanese and in Japan—that’s a promising start. After all, you have absolutely no idea who you are or how you got here.

You stand, coughing with an aching chest. It seems safe to assume that part of your headache and raw throat are from hacking up any parts of the ocean you might have inhaled. The road is close enough, and you start stumbling toward it.

A quick inventory of what you know sorts itself out despite your throbbing temples. You can be relatively certain of the following: you are male, and fairly young. You seem to be fairly well-dressed, though your jeans and boots are waterlogged and probably destined for the garbage. You’re in Japan, and more precisely somewhere in the southern islands, if the palm trees and humidity are anything to go by. Finally, you know that you’re not carrying a wallet or anything else remotely useful, so you’re going to be hitchhiking to…where?

You sigh and lean heavily against the guardrail when you reach the road, hiding in the shade of one of the trees lining the way. You don’t hear any cars, and you only see one road sign; “National Highway 226.” Cool. Where is that again?

You rest your head on your arms, letting the breeze dry your clothes a bit and trying to stop the world from spinning. Eventually the sound of a car overcomes the noise from the waves and wind. You sigh, stepping carefully over the guardrail and getting ready to signal for a ride.

“Woah. Uh,” you say, because there’s a person standing in the road where there wasn’t before. You kind of hope they aren’t hitching a ride too because the likelihood of _two_ mutual strangers being given a ride seems pretty low.

But it’s not all bad.

“Hey, ‘scuse me,” you call out to the person—a boy probably a bit younger than you, wearing a junior high uniform. “Could you tell me where we are?”

The car rounds the bend. It doesn’t slow, and the student doesn’t move.

“H-hey,” you shout. “Hey—fuck!” You flinch, horrified, as the car reaches the boy and passes right through. The boy flickers like a flame and disappears.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” you mutter. Are you going crazy? Are you actually seeing shit? Is this why you can’t remember anything?

“Holy shit,” you’re still whispering as you push yourself fully off the guard rail and start stumbling down the road, following the car because frankly you have nothing else you can do and apparently you need to get out of the heat. Maybe even get to a hospital. Hell, you’d settle for a payphone.

You’re not sure what to do with yourself as you trudge along. Should you be trying to check that the things you’re seeing are real, or is it better to ignore this shit so you’re not encouraging it?

You’re trying your best not to think hallucinogenic thoughts as you trudge up the road, cresting a hill and struggling a bit, what with the humidity and the headache and legs that still feel a bit wobbly from nearly drowning. At the top of the hill, though, you see the rooves of houses in a town within walking distance, peeking over the tops of trees and rolling foothills along the beach.

It doesn’t take long to reach the town. There’s a bus stop with a vending machine next to it, and you dig in your pockets to find 700 yen caked in sand. You bash the button for bottled water with enthusiasm that surprises you a little. After you chug half the bottle you look around and find a street sign indicating the location of the hospital in town. That’s probably the wisest idea, given that you seem to be hallucinating, an amnesiac, and half-drowned. With a sigh and a mixture of hope and trepidation, that’s the direction you head in.

Along the sidewalk, you catch your reflection in the glass of a storefront and get a good look at yourself. High school-age, apparently. Male, as you already realized. Outrageous orange hair, which you’d guessed from the colour of the bangs hanging in your eyes. You’re dressed pretty well, and built athletically—all in all, pretty good luck. Other than that, though, you don’t really have any identifying features. You’re not sure if you expected to have your full name and home address tattooed on your forehead, but you can’t help feeling a small weight of disappointment over not learning…much of anything. Maybe you’ll invest in dog tags or something once you get your answers.

You’re following the hospital signs around a corner, wondering if you should cross the street while the light is still green, when you see it walk out of an alley.

It looks like…something. A monkey, maybe, in the way that it’s hunched over its long arms and shuffling its short legs behind. But it’s huge, taller than the transport trucks passing by like it’s not even there. There’s a hole in its chest, right where organs would have to be for it to be alive, but there it is, picking its way down the street. You freeze. No one else freezes. No one else sees it.

You’re sure you know how things work. You know how to read Japanese. You know you’re well-dressed but your hair is a bit weird. You feel a tiny bit guilty for having thrown that water bottle in the garbage instead of looking for a recycling bin. You know that Pepsi is better than Coke, and natto is disgusting, and Visual Kei music is losing popularity. You know how the world works—even if you don’t know where you fit in it—and you’re _pretty sure_ that it isn’t normal to see something like whatever the hell _that_ is. People would flip their shit. People are not flipping their shit. Which means you’re the only one who sees it.

Which means it isn’t real.

You decide to cross the street, and even though the light is yellow-going-on-red you really couldn’t give less of a crap. You keep your eyes locked on the _thing_ and you probably look really creepy but that’s not the first thing on your mind. You’re watching, trying to breathe normally so your lungs don’t strain with another coughing fit. You can do it. It isn’t real, and you can go to the hospital and _get help_.

The thing turns its masked head as though it cannot help but see you, and its whole body follows the momentum, swinging to amble toward you. You can hear—you can feel—the ground as it shakes. The thing’s knuckles drag along the ground and it brushes dust into the air. Its face is like a mask of bone pulled into an unseeing grin.

_It isn’t real._

You pick up your pace, whatever, you’re freaked out and you definitely should find that hospital. It’s a logical reaction to an illogical situation.

The thing is in front of you and it roars. You freeze in your tracks. People probably stare. Who gives a crap. It raises its huge arm, hand held high above the power lines, and pulls back to strike you. It’s faster than it seemed, especially given its size, as it swings to crush you. You raise your hands to protect your head, even as you _feel_ how pointless it is.

“ _Kurosaki_?”

Nothing happens. Nothing happens. What the _hell_?

You lower your arms and look up with no small amount of horror. The thing is frozen with its massive hand a meter away from pounding you into the concrete.

“The fuck is wrong with you,” the same voice calls, and you somehow manage to tell your head to turn and look for the person speaking.

Oh, and you thought _your_ style was weird.

“Were you just…about to get your ass kicked by a baby Hollow?” The man walks toward you, hands in the pockets of white hakama, sharp blue eyes with edges creasing in a frown like you’re more interesting than the monster he can apparently see.

You don’t answer. How the fuck are you supposed to answer that?

He stops in front of you, showing a total disregard for personal space as he leans in and examines your face. “Kurosaki?”

“S—what? Am…is that my name?” It’s the only thing you can think to ask.

The guy with the blue hair and…floating jawbone…frowns more deeply. “The fuck‘re you playin’ at?”

The monster’s hand is still hovering over you. People are walking by, through the shadow it’s casting, and giving you weird looks. You feel like you’re going even crazier.

“Is my name Kurosaki?” If he knows you, then you know him, and you can work your way out of this. That’s the game plan.

“The hell…yeah, that’s your name. Kurosaki Ichigo. You fucking with me?”

The thing lifts it hand a bit, raising back as if readying to attempt another swing.

“Woah, no, hell no, I am not fucking with you. Look, I just woke up on a beach and I don’t remember how I got there or where I came from, okay? But a name is a good start, uh…”

You wait for him to supply his name. He just stares at you.

“Uh, what’s yours? Your name,” you clarify.

“Grimmjow,” he says slowly. He is not believing a word out of your mouth, but the _thing_ is _not_ making it easy for you to converse.

“Grimmjow,” you repeat, nowhere near as at-ease with the foreign consonants.

The sound of his name seems to make him lean back, looking you up and down. Assessing. “Yeah, that’s right.” He looks up at the creature and twitches his chin in the direction you came from. It wastes no time in leaving, stepping over you like it forgot you exist. “So yer tellin’ me you lost your memory, eh?”

You nod, trying not to be too enthusiastic. The guy got rid of the thing—the _Hollow_ —so you’re just trying not to collapse with relief. “I think I nearly drowned. Maybe you can get brain damage from that, I don’t know. But I don’t know anything about how I got there or where I’m from. No, seriously,” you add when he scoffs. “But I guess I know you, huh? And having a name will help, for sure.”

Grimmjow looks…angry, maybe. Annoyed for sure. “Brain damage, huh? Fuckin’ figures. Yeah, you know me, Kurosaki.”

You don’t know what to do with that info. By all accounts you should be thrilled to have stumbled across someone who knows who you are, but this guy isn’t reacting like a surprised and worried friend. He’s acting more like you owe him 2000 yen and he’s pissed that you could have forgotten. Plus, there’s the monster he just sent away. You’re not sure you want only two degrees of separation from that thing.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where I live, would you?” You’re hoping for a continued lucky streak, against all odds.

Grimmjow snorts, crossing his arms. “Naw, Shinigami. Why the hell would I know where you live?”

“You know my name, so I was hoping…” you trail off. The taller man looks pissed.

“You know what, Kurosaki? You _better_ be fuckin’ with me. Because this is some bullshit.” Wow, yeah, he really looks pissed. You think that normally wouldn’t matter to you, but with the monster earlier and the kind of day you’ve been having, you’re not at your best for this kind of thing. Whatever your best would be.

“Grimmjow-san,” you start.

“Hah, fuck no, don’t start with that ‘san’ shit.”

“…Grimmjow, then, I guess. I’m sorry,” you say. He glares. “Seriously! I am.” He glares harder. “But I’m not trying to mess with you. I woke up on a beach, apparently I nearly drowned, and now I don’t have any memories. I want to get home, wherever that is. That’s it. If it pisses you off that I can’t remember anything, then help me! Help me and maybe I’ll get my memories back. Then you won’t…I dunno, you won’t have to be pissed off anymore?”

The man tilts his head, looking irritated but giving some thought to what you’re telling him. You see the tiniest little half-grin tug at his mouth. “ _Help_ you. Alright, Kurosaki. Karakura Town. That’s where you come from. If getting your ass back there will get you ready for a fight faster, then that’s what we’re gonna fuckin’ do. I don’t wanna see your whiny ass flinchin’ at me any longer than I have to.”

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! So that was fun to write. Lemme know in the comments if you have any suggestions, con-crit, etc. Hopefully chapter two will be just as enjoyable.


End file.
